Taste the Blood of Dracula
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[00:00:00] Al: Hey, just a heads up the episode you're about to listen to is about taste the blood of Dracula directed by Peter Sasdy and written by Anthony Hines. Some relevant trigger warnings for this movie include blood abuse, general misogyny, and our host rank. This movie is spooky. If you'd like to learn more about the movie, discuss this evening, please visit our website progressively horrified. transistor.fm for show notes and a transcript. After the spooky music, we'll talk about the movie in full. So before warned, there will be spoilers. Now let's get onto the show.

[00:00:39] Jeremy: I'm sure, I'm sure there will be lots of discussion with this brothel at some point. Um, alright. Good evening and welcome to Progressively Horrified the podcast where we hold horror to progressive standards it never agreed to. Tonight we're talking about the fifth and one of the most fun of the Hammer Dracula films Taste the Blood of Dracula. I am your host Jeremy Whitley. And with me tonight I have a panel of cinephiles and cenobites. First, they're here to challenge the sexy werewolf, sexy, vampire binary. My co-host Ben Kahn. Ben, how are you tonight?

[00:01:26] Ben: It's amazing seeing a real trash horror film, trash being a word I apply lovingly, just treat itself like high art through its sheer conviction in its own Britishness.

[00:01:42] Emily: Rather.

[00:01:43] Jeremy: It's almost difficult to tell that it's trash because it's so incredibly British.

[00:01:47] Ben: It's so British, it's wildly British. I lived in England and it wasn't as British as this movie, .

[00:01:55] Jeremy: And of course, also with us, the Cinnamon Roll Of Cenobites, our co-host Emily Martin. How are you tonight, Emily?

[00:02:00] Emily: I'm wondering if the effervescence of Dracula blood would be applicable, like, uh, airborne or emergency?

[00:02:10] Ben: Dracula could have spent a lot of this movie as Kool-Aid mix.

[00:02:14] Emily: Yeah. Yeah. Is that, is this a, is this commentary on Jonestown?

[00:02:19] Ben: I don't know. But if Christopher Lee had ever busted through a brick wall yelling Oh yeah. Oh man. That this movie would've been six stars out of five.

[00:02:28] Emily: I'm pretty sure he has done that, but not on film.

[00:02:31] Ben: No, he did that and then murdered a Nazi.

[00:02:34] Emily: Yeah. So cool.

[00:02:36] Jeremy: And our, and our guest writer and podcaster extraordinare, one of the hosts of War Rocket Ajax, Apocrypals, movie fighters, sailor Business, Xena Warrior Business, and many more. Chris Sims. How are you Chris?

[00:02:47] Chris: I'm doing very well. Thank you.

[00:02:49] Ben: Ah, thank you for being here tonight with us.

[00:02:52] Chris: Thank you for having me. And I'm sorry, for uh, when Jeremy asked me uh, to be on for being like, oh yeah, let's do, let's do Taste of Blood of Dracula.

[00:03:00] Emily: Never be sorry. Yeah, don't be sorry.

[00:03:02] Ben: Why are you apologizing? This movie Fucking Ruled.

[00:03:05] Emily: Yeah, I love this movie.

[00:03:06] Chris: Here's, here's the thing. I am well known as saying it is my favorite of the 10 Hammer Dracula movies, which are, I think, the best Dracula movies. By and large. I didn't know that. You, at least Jeremy had never seen any of the Hammer movies. This is not the one I would suggest.

[00:03:26] Also, while it is my favorite, Good, is a very , the word good is thrown around a lot these days. I dunno if I can apply it to this.

[00:03:35] Ben: This movie begins with a shady snow globe salesman being thrown out of a carriage by a mysterious, unexplained, just violent, not man?

[00:03:47] Emily: He just, there's like zombie.

[00:03:49] Jeremy: I thought it had something to do with Dracula.

[00:03:50] Ben: Zombie?

[00:03:50] Jeremy: He does not.

[00:03:51] Ben: This is a kind of unexplained zombie in this movie.

[00:03:54] Emily: He had big Renfield energy.

[00:03:56] Ben: When I realized that we were getting no explanation for that man who attack, who inexplicably attacked the salesman and threw him outta carriage for a snow globe was, oh, okay.

[00:04:07] Buckle up. This is my kind of movie.

[00:04:10] Chris: I don't think it's inexplicable. That guy is kind of a huge scumbag. My favorite part of that though is that the other guy goes ahead and throws his luggage out after him.

[00:04:20] Emily: Yeah. Even though he is like, I have, I might have a million more snow globes in here from various other European cities, but he wanted that one.

[00:04:29] Chris: I feel like we've all been on the plane next to this guy.

[00:04:32] Ben: is some definite fun behind the scenes trivia that I think explains a lot. Should we do the recap first? Yes.

[00:04:39] Jeremy: Yeah, I think so. I, I did wanna say it's not completely true that I haven't ever seen any Hammer Dracula films because somehow in a pack of like, discount DVDs that was given to me when I was like, growing up with the, you know, the, the grandma who's like, that's my grandson that likes uh, weird movies.

[00:04:58] I did get the Satanic rights of Dracula which is one of these that has, again, has very little explanation at the beginning of it. And watching it, I was like, what the fuck's happening?

[00:05:09] Ben: Y'all.

[00:05:09] Emily: You read the title, right?

[00:05:11] Ben: That's all, that's your favorite Dracula. Of all the Draculas. Who's y'all's favorite?

[00:05:15] Emily: Christopher Lee.

[00:05:16] Ben: I mean, Can't argue with Christopher Lee as Dracula.

[00:05:19] Chris: Are we just talking movies or are we talking across all media?

[00:05:21] Emily: Let's talk across all media!

[00:05:22] Ben: Comics, video games.

[00:05:24] Chris: Well, the recent Halloween episode of the War Rock Ajax podcast Benito Cereno and Elle Collins and I did do a ranking of several Draculae.

[00:05:33] And our top ranked was Marvel Comics. Dracula Classic Mustache.

[00:05:38] Ben: Hell yeah. Tomb of Dracula.

[00:05:40] Chris: Tomb of Dracula. Dracula. Who fights the Silver Surfer.

[00:05:43] Ben: Listeners-.

[00:05:43] Chris: In Dracula.

[00:05:43] Ben: If you're listening to us, that sounds right up your alley. What was that again? Where can they catch that?

[00:05:48] Chris: That is episode 613 of the podcast War Rocket Ajax, which you can find at, warrocketajax.com.

[00:05:55] Jeremy: I think that was titled "Every Dracula Ever."

[00:05:57] Chris: That's the one.

[00:05:58] Jeremy: Yeah. I I was literally like two weeks before that came out, we were like, yeah, let's do Dracula stuff for December. And I was like, listening to this and I was like, oh, well. Similar, similar thoughts. . All right.

[00:06:12] Emily: I mean, the Castlevania Dracula is pretty hot.

[00:06:16] Chris: Also on the list.

[00:06:17] Emily: Yeah. Where, where did, I mean-.

[00:06:19] Ben: Where does Hotel Trannsylvania's Dracula fall on the ranking?

[00:06:24] Emily: Gotta listen to the podcast, man.

[00:06:25] Ben: That's true. I can't don't. Yeah, that's right. No spoilers.

[00:06:28] Emily: Yeah. Yeah. Can't spoil it.

[00:06:29] Jeremy: I don't think you guys ranked Adam Sandler Hotel Trannsylvania Dracula on that episode.

[00:06:34] Emily: That was Adam Sandler?

[00:06:35] Ben: That is Adam Sandler.

[00:06:37] Yeah.

[00:06:37] Chris: Oh, I'm afraid. I haven't seen any of those.

[00:06:39] Ben: You know-.

[00:06:40] All y'all at home. Emily's making the Yikes face!

[00:06:44] Emily: Yeah. Was pulling my collar and go Any yikers. Anyway, let's put that recap on.

[00:06:49] Ben: Yes.

[00:06:49] Jeremy: Alright.

[00:06:50] Chris: Draculas!

[00:06:51] Jeremy: Alright, so this is directed by Peter Sasdy. Written by Anthony Hinds and they list Bram Stoker as the writer. That's kind of loose, you know, he did create Dracula. He had nothing to do with the plot of this movie.

[00:07:02] Emily: This is all fan fiction. Like all of these movies are Dracula fan fiction. I want you guys to, I want everyone to think about that next time you're reading your, I'm really sorry, I just need to, this is a public service announcement for our listeners of readers, please, fan fiction is valid because this is what it is.

[00:07:19] Jeremy: Yeah. And as we said it, this Sir Christopher Lee and Dr. Dracula and he's fantastic. He's missing for a large chunk in the middle of this movie, but he does come back so fear not.

[00:07:30] Ben: He has nothing to do and he is the best part of the movie by a mile. What he does with a fucking nod in this movie is incredible. Like, there's not much of it, but when he's on screen, the movie knows it's fucking popping.

[00:07:44] Jeremy: So, uh, As we discussed, it opens with uh, Mr. Weller, a sketchy traveling salesman riding in a carriage with two very strange men. Uh, He refuses to hand over his wares for free and then gets tossed out into the woods.

[00:07:55] Uh, He wakes up hours later and goes for a good aimless wander in the woods, just in time to see Dracula who was being stabbed, was stabbed by a giant cross bleeds all over the rock. And poof leaving his cape and jewelry behind. The rest of his clothes are apparently part of his body and look Blood of Dracula.

[00:08:11] It's time for the title. We jump forward to meet three families that are going to be the center of this movie. They're all leaving a church. Uh, They are the Hargoods, which features the dad, an angry man, the mom, a doting wife, and their lovestruck daughter Alice; the Paxton's, uh, Mr. Paxton who kind of sucks but is sort of the timid one of the dads. His giggly daughter, Lucy and his son Paul, who loves Alice generally seems pretty useless until he eventually saves day using the power of, I don't know, prayer, I guess. I'm not sure.

[00:08:40] Emily: Golden cross. Yeah.

[00:08:42] Ben: He's not useless. He has wonderful Kyle McLaughlin in Dune hair.

[00:08:46] Emily: Oh my God. And the Devilman sideburns, the 1870s hair?

[00:08:52] Ben: Named Paul. Yeah. Oh my God. This guy is both 1860s and 1960s at the same time. And it's wonderful.

[00:09:00] Jeremy: Yeah. Yeah. And we also have Mr. Secker and his son. Boy, if you thought Paul was forgettable, Jeremy is also here. The important thing to know about all of this is Alice and Paul are in love, but Mr. Hargood hates Paul for reasons that will never be discussed.

[00:09:14] Uh, He does have a stupid face, and that might be part of it. Also, Lucy loves Jeremy, but that won't matter until the end of Act two. A scene in which, which could have easily been written out of the movie. Mr. Harwood's hobbies include calling his daughter a harlot, threatening to beat her, and also being a founding member of the most vanilla Hellfire club in history.

[00:09:34] Emily: So wanna be, they're just three guys.

[00:09:37] Jeremy: So yeah, it's, we have Harwood, Paxton, and Secker who love to sneak off together every fourth Sunday under the guise of helping the poor to go hang out in a brothel and dare their extremely colorful pimp slash Madam Felix to bring them more exotic pleasures. But their snake handling women just aren't getting their dicks up anymore.

[00:09:55] So when Mr. Courtley shows up and steals one of their girls, they gotta know what his deal is. According to Felix, he got kicked out of his home for having a black mass and at his church, and now the prostitutes all pay to be with him. Surely he must know more adventurous ways to get their tallywhacker slippery.

[00:10:12] He tells them-.

[00:10:13] Emily: That's so British.

[00:10:13] Jeremy: He tells them that the answer is for them to buy all these cool Dracula relics from his friend to Mr. Weller and come see him at St. Dracula's Anglican Church. He is prepared a fun night of Hide and Seek and made them all some Dracula, blood smoothies. But it turns out that the boys are too vanilla to try this milkshake.

[00:10:30] And he's the only one who drinks it, at which point he starts writhing on the ground and begging for help. The Heckwater Club seems to think he's on fire and desperately tries to put him out by beating him to death with whatever's close at hand until he stops moving. Uh, Oops. They did a murder time to leave the body there.

[00:10:46] Ask our families to perjure themselves and then drink until we feel nothing. Courtley meanwhile is reborn as Dracula who swears to get revenge on those who murdered his servants. His servant. Not a particularly tall order, but Jack's gonna do it in style. Alice sneaks out to a party against her father's wishes, and he decides he's going to drunkenly beat her.

[00:11:06] She tries to run away, but finds-.

[00:11:07] Ben: He's the worst.

[00:11:08] Jeremy: Yeah. He finds, she finds the prettiest Dracula in the garden uh, who convinces her to give her father a shovel lobotomy and with just a stern look.

[00:11:16] Emily: I mean, yeah.

[00:11:18] Ben: It's Christopher Lee and it is quite the look.

[00:11:21] Emily: Oh yeah. Christopher Lee's really good at being like use that shovel go upside his head.

[00:11:26] Jeremy: But of course he just says nothing. He just stares at her.

[00:11:28] Emily: Yeah, he just-.

[00:11:29] Ben: Chris Christopher Lee is given grains of sand and he makes a beach out of it.

[00:11:36] Emily: Well, he is grains of sand. He is made out of sand, like,

[00:11:40] Ben: He is made out of powdered fruit punch.

[00:11:42] Emily: Yeah. Or, or sand or colored sand.

[00:11:45] Ben: Now I know Dracula is cherry flavored.

[00:11:47] Jeremy: I know we like to say that Count von Count is inspired by uh, Dracula,

[00:11:52] Sesame Street: I am the count. Huh? Do you know why they called me to count? Because I love to count things.

[00:12:00] Jeremy: But Dracula is way into counting in this movie. His most dramatic lines delivered are the first, the second, and the third.

[00:12:07] Emily: And then uh, uh.

[00:12:09] Sesame Street: Wonderful. Ha ha ha ha! Wonderful! Oh I love mail!

[00:12:15] Jeremy: The cops have no interest in solving hargraves or Hargood's, death, and Alice's disappearance. As usual, all cops are bad, especially in horror movies. So the entranced Alice is clear to just come recruit Lucy in broad daylight from her own dad's funeral. Uh, They write a driverless carriage to St. Dracula's where Alice and Dracula pressure Lucy into an uncomfortable three-way, and Lucy becomes a vampire.

[00:12:37] Now that Hargood Alice and Lucy have all gone missing, Paxton is sure it's Courtley back from the dead, and he and Secker decided to go check out St. Draculas to see if Courtley's body is. It isn't. But Lucy has taken up residence in the local coffin. Secker is anxious to shove a piece of church pew through her titties.

[00:12:54] But it is not to be as Paxton shoots Secker before tearfully deciding that I guess he's only right that he kill his own daughter uh, but he's too late. Lucy and Alice hold him down and drive a stake through his chest. A normal human's only weakness. Secker stumbled back home after being shot. I was sure he was dead at this point in the movie, but he, he gets back up and goes home and then starts bleeding on his desk for a while.

[00:13:18] Hey, remember Secker has a son named Jeremy. He's here. He immediately gets bitten by Lucy, stabs his own dad, and then ceases to matter again. Now that his revenge is done, Dracula decides to finish off Lucy. The end. But wait! Secker wrote a letter to Paul. The only person left who cares that anybody has died.

[00:13:33] When he came to the fact that there is a book that just says vampires on the shelf, that he should read that. Paul arms himself with a sensible purse full of vampire gear and sets off to redecorate St. Dracula's Cathedral. But on the way he finds Lucy's body discarded in nearby lake, fuck you Dracula. A turtle could have choked on that. He puts up her candles, he puts up some new candles, some crosses, and a sensible table runner before yelling at increasing volume for Alice to come out, because I guess Dracula never actually bit her and he's gonna save her. Dracula kicks Paul's ass. Paul saves Alice through the power of motivational speaking, and then Dracula breaks a stained glass window, develops this incredible case of vertigo, and decides that it just isn't worth getting away and he's going to die.

[00:14:22] Not particularly because of anything Paul did, just cuz there's crosses around and that's the end.

[00:14:26] Emily: Yeah, the Jesus was too hard.

[00:14:28] Ben: Okay. I do wanna point out one mistake. Paul does not convince Alice to become good Alice to the end wants to go with Dracula, and only after Dracula explicitly rejects her, does she then turn on Paul has nothing to do with it. It is pure Dracula's rejection. I mean, she wants to be evil and evil says nah.

[00:14:49] Emily: Yeah. And good for her. Good for her not putting up with that shit. I have a question for everyone. And, and Chris as the, the most, what I assume, I assume you're the most experienced person with this film today in this chat.

[00:15:04] Chris: I, I have watched it a dozen-.

[00:15:06] Ben: As our, as our resident Dracula.

[00:15:09] Emily: Yes.

[00:15:10] Jeremy: 11 more times than the rest of us.

[00:15:11] Emily: Yeah. As our resident taste the blood theology. What was Courtley's game like? What the fuck was he trying to do?

[00:15:19] Chris: Well, you know.

[00:15:20] Ben: Okay. No, I, I thought about this and I'm pretty sure he had gotten this three of them into like, drink the blood smoothie. They would've become three. Christopher Lees.

[00:15:32] Emily: So four total, which-.

[00:15:34] Ben: And he was trying to make just like a whole bunch of Christopher Lees go around.

[00:15:38] Emily: Yeah. But like when he drank the Dracula blood, he was like, oh fuck, this sucks. And then started like writing on the ground.

[00:15:46] Chris: I think his plan was that he would become Dracula and the other three would be like his thralls because Okay, so it's the powdered Dracula blood and also his blood.

[00:15:56] Ben: Oh, okay. No. So here's where. The behind the scenes trivia comes in.

[00:16:01] Emily: Please.

[00:16:02] Ben: Uh, This movie was completely written with the idea that Christopher Lee had expressed not wanting to return as Dracula. They wanted to build up Ralph Bates the actor who played the Lord Courtley, and they wrote this whole movie with the idea that Courtley would be the new main villain.

[00:16:21] The ceremony would go wrong, and he would come back to life as a vampire and do all the vengeance stuff. And the international distributors were like, LOL no, like, get us Dracula or get the fuck out. So they convinced, so they somehow convinced Christopher Lee to come back for, to do like a few day, a day and a half, I'm guessing, of Dracula filming.

[00:16:46] Because it seems like his, like shots were filmed completely separate from almost all the other actors and at a completely different times.

[00:16:53] Chris: Yeah. And he doesn't deliver a whole lot of dialogue. The, the apocryphal story is that Lee refused to say any dialogue that he thought was stupid, which is why he has, there's at least one movie in here where he has no lines.

[00:17:08] Oh. But that is, is not necessarily true. That is a, that is a, a rumor.

[00:17:13] Emily: It should be true though. Like he deserves good writing. Some of the writing in this movie is-

[00:17:19] Ben: I'm kind of convinced they must have filmed a bunch of the Courtley main villain stuff too, and either they had to rewrite like a lot or they were like, oh, good. We had this whole, he uses the children to kill the father's thing so we don't have to refilm many of the big death scenes. There is some scenes where it is really obvious that not Christopher Lee is with one actor and Christopher Lee is working with not the, not the actor who plays the other character.

[00:17:50] There's a lot of shot reverse shots.

[00:17:52] Chris: Yeah. There's a couple scenes like in the climax where he's like throwing stuff at Paul where I thought like, oh, that's probably just Lee's stand in doing some physical stuff, but it looks like it could be a stand-in for either Lee or Courtley.

[00:18:08] So yeah, it makes, it makes sense. Yeah, I think, I think Courtley is actually. Like a really interesting character.

[00:18:15] Ben: I, I would've liked more of court. He was super fun.

[00:18:18] Emily: Yeah. He had some of the kind of LeStat stuff going on and some of the Lucifer stuff going on, like that whole bit where, especially Felix, where he is like in the devil Devil and he likes the devil.

[00:18:30] Would you like the devil? And then the three dudes are like, maybe actually I'm pretty bored with Bussy, like the, except that one guy who's really into that Persian cat, which I really don't know how I feel about.

[00:18:42] Ben: Oh yeah, there's a brothel cat in this movie. Did he bring that cat in with him or does that cat, is it like a bodega cat but for sex work.

[00:18:51] Emily: I think it's a bodega cat situation.

[00:18:53] Ben: That make, that makes me feel better.

[00:18:55] Jeremy: I fully get the feeling that Paxton would've been good to continue to just come and, and get, get some pussy. But every, the other two were just like, Nah, this, uh, illicit sex with different women every week is boring.

[00:19:08] Ben: The way these old men peer pressure each other with like, kick you out of the, the super special secret club, like they are children. oh, I loved it. It was delightful.

[00:19:24] Emily: No, I mean, maybe, maybe some shade on the free Masons, but there seems to be a lot of that going on, on the, the whole Freemason situation.

[00:19:32] Ben: Anytime, like Papa Paxton is like, uh, are we sure we wanna bring back Dracula? They just respond to if, like, if you wanna be kicked out of the circle.

[00:19:44] Yeah. Paxton W and absent club.

[00:19:48] Emily: Chris, what do you think about Paxton? Do you think he's moral or is just, is stooge.

[00:19:54] Chris: No. No. Everyone in this movie sucks.

[00:19:56] Okay.

[00:19:57] Like that's the-. Alice and arguably Paul are like the only ones that we should not want to see violently murdered.

[00:20:06] Ben: Yes. I guess Alice's mom's worst rate is stuck in abusive marriage in a time when women have no power, economic or political power of their own.

[00:20:17] Chris: All right. Okay. Perhaps I should amend my statement!

[00:20:21] Ben: Hashtag Alice's mom did nothing wrong.

[00:20:24] Emily: She really should have intervened. I mean, she, I don't know.

[00:20:28] Jeremy: She has a surprising amount of objecting for this particular marriage. Like, true. I was sure that he was gonna wheel on her at any minute and, and just smack her cuz like, He's really giving like Act one Scrooge in this movie.

[00:20:44] Yeah. Everybody else is acting evil on a slightly lower level. The Cathar Decker is, is just playing British Lee Marvin. But , other than that.

[00:20:55] Ben: Oh my God. Like the catharsis I felt when that like shovel went into his face, like he I wanted was so awful. More shovels. Like even though this is like the whole like, and I do like the plot, like I really like this feels very wonderfully creative and petty for, for Like murder people he has grudges against with their own kids. Like that's a great Dracula like just thing to do. But man, even though she's being like mind control influenced to do. It's really nice seeing Alice just like murder the shit out of her abusive, like shithead dad, who's just been the worst, the whole film.

[00:21:37] Emily: Yeah. And the whole whipping thing, like really borders, like just in terms of how he's acting with her, really borders on like sexual assault as well, which is, you know-.

[00:21:47] Ben: It's fucked up. It's the most disturbing scene in the movie.

[00:21:49] Emily: Yeah. And also we're introduced to William as being like super, like he's like, go to your room cuz you looked at a man, like literally.

[00:21:59] Ben: Okay.

[00:22:00] Jeremy: Calls her a harlot repeatedly.

[00:22:01] Emily: Yeah. Because she looked at a man.

[00:22:04] Ben: I, I put this out to the, I'll be polite and say Gentiles on the panel. I was under the understanding and that like, at least an old time, like. That was the point of church. It was the socially acceptable mingling and flirting to make courtship happen.

[00:22:23] Where it's like we talk about Jesus and then we got, and then like the repressed purita and then the repressed Christian people, I bang from across the pews. I thought that was the point of it.

[00:22:34] Emily: Well, we have that and then we have them going directly to the brothel afterward. So immediately like these guys are, I mean especially William is, he's established to be a huge hypocrite and you know, super piece of shit before he even like beats anybody.

[00:22:52] Ben: Also, isn't Sunday, like he leaves almost a, oh no, I guess there's a time skip. I like the idea of him just going straight from church to the brothel and being like, well noon it's, it's 1:00 PM that time for lunch in a brothel.

[00:23:07] Chris: They, they get out of church, they hit up Shoney's. Yeah, and then it's immediately off to the weird adult baby sex dungeon.

[00:23:16] But they have, and that-.

[00:23:18] Jeremy: Honestly

[00:23:18] Emily: God! That's right!

[00:23:20] Jeremy: That could have been a Shoney's that they walked through on the way to the sex dungeon. I mean, it looked like a soup kitchen, but I've been to Shoney's.

[00:23:27] Emily: Yeah. With a little, all the little urchins going, sir! And you, you toss me.

[00:23:35] Jeremy: The difference is it's Shoney's they have a southern accent, so Yeah.

[00:23:38] Emily: It's just different accents. Yeah. You toss dollars in the air and let the kids fight over 'em.

[00:23:43] Ben: Again, this movie, so British. I mean this movie while being like, look at how much these upper class assholes are, just the biggest assholes is also kind of delighting in being upper crust elitist.

[00:23:58] Chris: I love how much. William Hargood is scowling as he walks into their weird fetish club.

[00:24:08] Ben: Jeffrey Keen, scowls like motherfucker, he is so good. Like, shout out to Jeffrey Keen for how good he is at just being scummy.

[00:24:18] Emily: Mm-hmm.

[00:24:20] Chris: He really like his whole thing of like, you know, I'm never around on the fourth Sunday of the month. It's like, yeah, well this dude who is really treating this like, it is an obligation. Like it'll say the fetish club again.

[00:24:35] Emily: I think, I think that he or I think his wife totally knows that that's what's going on, like a hundred percent. Cause otherwise she wouldn't be so insistent on forgetting about it and she'd be like, I made you a ham. Can you please not go to the fetish club and get spotted dick? Like, please.

[00:24:53] Ben: This, this lady has mastered the stiff upper lip. Yeah.

[00:24:58] Chris: No one seems to be enjoying themselves at any part of this excursion.

[00:25:03] Jeremy: Except for Felix. Felix is having a hell of a time.

[00:25:06] Ben: This is all-.

[00:25:07] Emily: The ladies-.

[00:25:07] Ben: And incredibly, nobody's enjoying themselves. A very British movie.

[00:25:13] Emily: Right? There's like a snake dance and there's, I mean, there's a, I will say, I think it's Secker who's, which is an unfortunate name, who is like really into petting the cat. And I mean, the context makes it weird because they're in a brothel. I saw spoil all his ladies, but then he's sitting there and he's petting that cat like it, like it's his fucking one ring.

[00:25:37] Like he's like preciousssss.

[00:25:39] Ben: Okay. I, I did see that. They have like the opium thing or like the opium hookah. So I took that as like, okay, he's just, he's mostly here for like drugs and then he is like in like ecstasy land where he is like, I must never stop petting this cat.

[00:25:53] Emily: Yeah. He is stimming on the cat, which is like-.

[00:25:55] Ben: He's stimming on the, yeah, like I took that as like he, he's in it for the opium and just the high quality snake dance choreography.

[00:26:03] Emily: That poor snake.

[00:26:04] Chris: I feel like the only word that was accurate in that description was snake . I would hesitate to call it high quality choreography or even dance.

[00:26:12] Ben: I was so worried that whole scene that the snake was gonna go in her mouth.

[00:26:15] Emily: I, this is not that kind of movie.

[00:26:17] Jeremy: It's the dance equivalent of any time on Star Trek that something's supposed to shake and everybody just sort of. He threw, yeah, it's like cooperating her with her to make it look kinda like a dance.

[00:26:29] Ben: Now, do you think, what do you think that casting call was like? Like needed one scene. Like background actress must be comfortable with reptiles.

[00:26:40] Emily: I, she, I don't think they got that last part cuz she's

[00:26:43] Jeremy: BYOS. Bring Your Own Snake.

[00:26:45] Ben: Like, do you think, do you think that actress went in being like, okay, I'm doing a snake thing or I am a snake trainer who is getting a chance to be on this film?

[00:26:55] Or do you think this was like a random London background actress who showed up on set thinking she's getting a big break in a Dracula film and then they're like, okay, no, he wear this giant snake all day.

[00:27:09] Chris: That one, I, I would hesitate to say snake trainer. But I, I do feel like this is definitely an, I know somebody situation.

[00:27:17] Emily: She was definitely part of the theto and she like goes to the, The OTO meetings and has her snake there and everyone's like, oh, it's the magical you're gonna be the Whore of Babylon tonight. And she'd be like, rad. And then she does a snake dance and then they're like, what's Babylon? And then because they're, cuz they're appropriating anyway.

[00:27:39] Jeremy: I feel like they were just like, you need somebody with, with breasts a snake and that they can dance. And they got two outta three, so they were happy.

[00:27:47] Ben: I wonder if they even had the snake in the script or again, if someone was like, yo, I know this lady. She'd be definitely be down for it. She's got a great pair and a great snake.

[00:27:58] I think it'd really make the scene pop.

[00:28:01] Chris: That is the answer.

[00:28:02] Emily: Yes. Yes. Correct. Chris, when you need more women in movies with great pairs and great snakes.

[00:28:08] Jeremy: Chris, do you have a favorite scene in this film?

[00:28:11] Chris: I, there are a couple. I do primarily love this movie for one reason, which is that it is a movie called Taste the Blood of Dracula, in which someone does in fact, taste the blood of Dracula. It delivers on the promise of the time.

[00:28:26] Jeremy: That's what it says on the box. Yeah.

[00:28:28] Emily: It says what it says on the box.

[00:28:30] Chris: There's a thing that, that you might not know if you haven't watched a lot of these but that I think you got from watching it. And that is at the end of every Dracula movie, Dracula dies. And so when they make a sequel, the cold open of every Dracula movie is Dracula getting out of that particular death.

[00:28:48] So in the opening of this movie, when we see Dracula, Getting impaled on the the cross That is the climax of the previous film.

[00:28:57] Ben: Okay. But I felt.

[00:28:59] Chris: That's not my favorite scene. My favorite scene is when the dude comes over and is like rifling through Dracula's thick with two C's, blood to get his stuff and he pulls out the gigantic battalion that says Dracula.

[00:29:17] Ben: That was amazing.

[00:29:18] Chris: Okay. Yes. I'm so glad you brought that up. That was

[00:29:20] Ben: incredible. The giant name tag necklace.

[00:29:25] Jeremy: Dracula has the same taste in jewelry that like nineties rappers ?

[00:29:28] Emily: Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Og. Oh my God.

[00:29:33] Chris: Well, I wish it she'd been like awesome with like a little Dracula .

[00:29:38] Ben: I figured that was the ending of the last movie, but I really hoped it was just something completely out context with no explanation. Like you just stumble on the woods and it's like Op Dracula got himself impaled on a giant cross. Wonder what that's about.

[00:29:54] Emily: I kind of love it as a, I love it because it's like this dude's lost in the woods and he's here. He's hearing people like roaring and yelling and shit and you just come upon a dying Dracula like it's such a, a brother's grim kind of opening.

[00:30:09] Like I once, it's upon a time I came upon a dying Dracula and then I picked up his blood and I said, it's the blood of Dracula.

[00:30:17] Ben: What really sells it to me and just really encapsulates what makes this movie amazing, is when they're going through the things like the necklace, the cape, they, they treated these items with real reverence and awe and they look like they came from a spirit Halloween.

[00:30:37] Yeah. They're so cheap looking props.

[00:30:42] Chris: I love it.

[00:30:43] Jeremy: I love that. Like he has to mix the blood and everything into smoothies, but this does require him to go into full Dracula cosplay beforehand.

[00:30:52] Chris: Do you not do that when you make a smoothie? Do you not put the cape on and, no, I don't.

[00:30:57] Jeremy: We're don't usually wear my, my smoothie, my cape and my signet ring for making smoothies.

[00:31:02] Emily: I wear my headband and my, my Garfield Neon Genesis Evangelion shirt and I get really, I get into it, I gotta do it.

[00:31:09] Ben: And Lord Courtley does. Is my favorite. He's not on screen when he's just bossing around these British men when he's just storming through the brothel creeping on everybody. When he is, just put it on a cape when he's just crying for help and then they kick him to death.

[00:31:26] Emily: Yeah.

[00:31:28] Ben: I don't know why they kicked him to death, but-.

[00:31:30] Emily: I feel like there was a bit of, there was some homophobia going on there cuz they were like really afraid of the emotions that this guy was, was inspiring in them cuz they were like, well, I'm done with chicks. I guess I, let's, let's invite this guy dinner, see what he's about. He's intriguing.

[00:31:48] Ben: Hargood is in love with him. Yeah. Our good is, is like, has such a fascination boner with Courtley from the get go.

[00:31:55] Emily: Yeah. And like that's how dudes, that's how dudes in the 1800s like flirted. It's like, hey, show me how you get these women. Like, Can you show me how your secret? Like can you show it?

[00:32:09] Jeremy: That's perhaps the thing in this movie that's most accurate to Bram Stoker right? Yeah.

[00:32:14] Ben: I do kind of wanna take a moment of silence because at least based on how the sound was, I assume at least the one boom mic editor got trampled to death by a horse making this movie to death. There's some like audio recording that is real dicey.

[00:32:31] Emily: I mean, it's a Hammer film. At least those shots.

[00:32:35] Ben: It's what I love. I love, I love like some of the bad sound mixing! I love that It looks like gazpacho in those goblets.

[00:32:43] Emily: It probably was. It's probably really delicious tomato gazpacho.

[00:32:47] Ben: The perfect level of dramatic close up on Christopher Lee's eyes.

[00:32:52] Emily: Yeah, he got, he got real red in the eyes. Like, did they give him some special shit to make or did they just get him like really, really stuff?

[00:32:59] Ben: Definitely had to, but I, I really wish I really wish Christopher Lee was just chain smoking joints before every take.

[00:33:06] Emily: I am going to choose to believe that that is what's going on.

[00:33:11] Ben: Chris, question for you.

[00:33:13] Chris: Yes.

[00:33:13] Ben: If Lord Crowley brought you to the first Church of Dracula, do you drink the Gazpacho Vampire smoothie?

[00:33:20] Chris: I am, my wife likes to refer to me as a participant and I have been told by, by just people who haven't even known me that long that I am the kind of person who regrets the things.

[00:33:32] I don't do more than the things that I do. So I, I mean, yeah. How often are you gonna get a chance to drink the blood of Dracula? Yeah. Especially if I know I'm in a movie called Taste the Blood of Dracula.

[00:33:43] Ben: Turn down Dracula! Taste Blood Dracula, and you're offered the blood Dracula. Yeah. You gotta take a taste!

[00:33:50] Chris: I feel like I'd be like, yeah, well I'm, I'm here in this Deconsecrated church, you know, I've, we're already here. We've already got all the stuff. We might as well, you know, if you're gonna go to town, you might as well go in a Lincoln.

[00:34:03] Emily: Right?

[00:34:03] Chris: Yeah.

[00:34:04] Ben: Right now, I know Paul cleaned up the church, but it really seems like Dracula just suddenly remembers that he's supposed to be weak to crosses.

[00:34:15] Chris: That's the other thing that I love. In the same way that like in every movie they have to undo the death of Dracula, which sounds like a great title for a Hammer Dracula movie.

[00:34:24] Honestly.

[00:34:26] Ben: Undo the Death of Dracula. Fuck yeah. Ooh, I'd watch that.

[00:34:30] Chris: They have to come up with a new way to kill him too at the end. And you know, like getting it impaled on a cross is pretty, like, this is the fourth one. So they've, they've already done the regular ending. They've done the sunlight, they've done impaling on a, on a cross. So this is kind of the first one where they have to get a little weird with it and get creative.

[00:34:53] Ben: Do they ever have to do like, oh no! Dracula accidentally ate shrimp scampi and the garlic killed him. Yeah.

[00:35:00] Emily: And he's allergic to shell fish!

[00:35:02] Chris: That's in Lobster Fest with Dracula.

[00:35:05] Ben: Yeah.

[00:35:07] Chris: Taste the Cheddar Bay biscuits of Dracula.

[00:35:10] Emily: Taste the Old Bay with Dracula.

[00:35:12] Chris: But like, it is full madness that Paul is like, okay, I know what I'll do. I'll go to this clearly like ruined and disused church that has, they've hung up a baphomet and I'll just make it look like a regular church. Cause I know that he's not supposed to be in there in one of those.

[00:35:36] Ben: I hate to-.

[00:35:37] Chris: Pulling candlesticks out of his bag and setting up the altar and making sure it's like, just so, like, that's such a weird way of killing Dracula. But I

[00:35:46] Ben: love it. Like I, I hate to critique Christopher Lee, but if I'm Dracula, I, I think I simply wouldn't make a church my headquarters.

[00:35:54] Emily: That was what he did in the book.

[00:35:56] I mean, Carfax Abby, he bought up Carfax Abby and he car, he bought up like the, all the land around it. He did put his like dirt around it. So he's like, is my dirt now. And then he had like a bunch of guys take care of things. I guess it's clear.

[00:36:10] Ben: Well, I least wouldn't leave up the stained glass window of the giant cross.

[00:36:14] Chris: Yeah, he put a curtain on it.

[00:36:17] Emily: That's true. He did put a baphomet curtain on it.

[00:36:19] Ben: Did he put up a curtain. He did Put up the curtain.

[00:36:21] Jeremy: My, my favorite bit from Paul redecorating the church, if you didn't notice, was the sensible table runner that he puts across the . That like, he literally just like takes down the black candles, puts up the white candles and is like, you know what some doilies would make this would really bring this to life.

[00:36:41] Emily: Paul, that's his version of putting on the Dracula cape. Like he needs to get in the, he needs to get in the, like he needs to empower himself. He's putting

[00:36:48] Jeremy: on the Joanna Gaines cape. Oh, he's about to install a barn door on this thing.

[00:36:52] Ben: I really loved is when Paxton shooting at Secker, because bullet sound effects are absolutely ridiculous, but I don't blame Hammer for that. They're British. They don't know, they don't hear guns all, all the time like we do. Yeah. Those gun sound effects would be unacceptable over here, but we'll give you the uk. You don't have the Shooty shooty. Bang bang.

[00:37:14] Emily: So I have another question about this continuity in the movie, which you know, is a question I can ask and I decide to ask it. That whole thing with Courtley, I feel like that's supposed to be happening in one night. Like I think that's all happening in one single night. Like they go and they buy the blood Dracula, they get their crystal goblets. They get like their fucking special shit. Which I'm pretty sure that it's all Courtley just being like, Hey, I don't wanna pay for this. You guys gotta pay for this shit cuz I want it to be extra special.

[00:37:47] Ben: I mean supper's pretty early. I think they went to the brothel at like five.

[00:37:50] Emily: And it's also England, so it's probably like, it's November some shit. Or maybe it's February. I don't know. And so like the light, you know, gets dark super early cause he, he left before dinner.

[00:38:01] Ben: If you're gonna be Dracula like fucking England, like great place to be. You can stay out almost the whole time.

[00:38:07] Emily: So chris, as the, as the taste of blood of Dracula expert, what say you of this timeline, did this all happen in one night? Not the whole thing but the, brothel to the beating?

[00:38:20] Chris: Yes. That's all one night. I'm pretty sure.

[00:38:24] Ben: What was Lord Courtley's plan? Was Courtley's plan to just like, Barge into brothels until he intrigued rich people who would buy him the things he needed to bring Dracula back.

[00:38:38] Emily: He just wanted to be a cult leader. Yeah, yeah.

[00:38:40] Ben: Granted it worked. Granted flawless plan. Yeah. Almost foolproof. Aside from the part where he got kicked to death.

[00:38:47] Emily: I mean, he really should have vetted the whole like blood Dracula thing first. Like I, you know, if I was him, I would be like, Hey, Weller, can I have like, just a little tiny, just also is Weller, is that actor related to the guy that plays John Badminton because they look a lot alike.

[00:39:05] Ben: That was from Roy Kinnear.

[00:39:09] Emily: The Weller or John Bannon.

[00:39:11] Jeremy: Weller.

[00:39:11] Ben: Father of Rory Kinnear.

[00:39:14] Emily: Who is?

[00:39:14] Ben: Who is, is Frankenstein's monster in Penny Dreadful.

[00:39:17] Jeremy: It's also the men, a whole of for men or the men from men.

[00:39:21] Ben: He was M's like side person in pretty much all of the Daniel Craig James Bond movies. So that was Roy Kinnear. So a bit of a uh, British acting family dynasty right there. Oh, that is So they are related. Yeah. Yes. Roy Kinnear and Rory Kinnear. Yes, they are father and son.

[00:39:41] Wow. .

[00:39:42] Emily: I recognize a faith.

[00:39:44] Jeremy: Like I said, there's only 10 people working in Britain at any given time.

[00:39:48] Emily: cause. Well I was thinking like Rory Kinnear isn't that old, is he? He can't be that old cause he looks

[00:39:54] Ben: exactly like that guy. Except this is this is the previous generation of Kinnear actors, Kinnear of thespians, if you will.

[00:40:01] Yeah.

[00:40:01] Emily: The Kinnear legacy.

[00:40:03] Jeremy: It was, was interesting to me about this movie. And it might be just because I've been watching Queer for Fear where, you know, they're talking a lot about Queer characters and stuff in, in horror movies and sort of the pre-code versus the code years.

[00:40:15] Ben: Oh, are we gonna talk about the queer character in this movie?

[00:40:19] Jeremy: I feel like-.

[00:40:20] Emily: A little bit.

[00:40:21] Jeremy: They had a real like section towards the beginning of this movie where there were a lot of fancy lad popping up between uh, Courtley and Felix, that it was just like, all right, there's a real like gay contingent in this movie.

[00:40:35] I pointed out to Alicia as we were watching it, I was like, there's one guy that gets bitten and turned into a vampire in this movie, and Dracula ain't gay, so he has the girl do it for him. I guess. He's just like, I'll stand and you turn him into a vampire. I'm not into that.

[00:40:52] Ben: That's, oh my God. That's exactly why they had to do that. Yeah.

[00:40:56] Chris: I mean, that does, you know, that that does follow novel continuity. Dracula is only for the ladies.

[00:41:02] Emily: It just likes having a, you know, like any anime boy, he likes having a harem. It's important.

[00:41:08] Jeremy: I mean, I think Bram Stoker needed people to know that, like he wasn't going around fantasizing about nibbling on any men's necks. Especially not Walt Whitman.

[00:41:19] Ben: Bram Stoker's. Tenchi Muyo! Oh.

[00:41:23] Emily: But Tenchi sucks though.

[00:41:26] Jeremy: Never seen Tenchi Muyo!

[00:41:26] Ben: Dracula's great, but, and this is what I realized. Especially once we watch, like we see Keanu in like Bram Stoker's Dracula and we see it with Paul. Is there a more thankless role than the nominal protagonist in a Dracula movie? Like the guy trying to get win his girl back from Dracula? Is, is there a more thankless role?

[00:41:49] Emily: I mean, I think I can think of one...

[00:41:51] Ben: like, who is pulling off that character in a way that, that's memorable next to fucking Dracula. Dracula played by Christopher Lee. They had to get Peter Cushing as old man Van Helsing, just to have a bit of a protagonist and then he usually had to have like a boring guy Help him.

[00:42:10] Jeremy: Well, yeah, I think, you know, in, Dracula or horror of Dracula you have a series of other dudes who are fairly worthless in this. You have, Arthur Homewood and you have who am I trying to think of? That's-.

[00:42:24] Chris: About talking about Dr. The Cowboy, Quincy Morris and uh, and Arthur Homewood?

[00:42:29] Emily: There was Arthur Homewood, Quincy Morrison. Yeah. And the Dr. Guy.

[00:42:32] Ben: Which was the fighter, the thief, and the Ranger?

[00:42:35] Chris: Well, Quincy Morris is the cowboy.

[00:42:37] Ben: Yeah. So he's the ranger's, the fighter, everybody.

[00:42:39] Chris: When everybody was doing Dracula Daily, and an entire generation of people found out that there's a cowboy in Dracula who's always cut out of adaptations and everybody was like, there's a cowboy in Dracula.

[00:42:51] I was so delighted because I was like, first of all, happy everyone finds out there's a cowboy in Dracula Day. Yes. Uh, Secondly, that means none of you know how Dracula ends. You're gonna be delighted. Yep.

[00:43:05] Emily: And the, the presence of that cowboy also, I think is, is indicative of our buddy Bram Bram stoke because he does do a, a lot of description...

[00:43:17] Ben: about Quincy Morris. Maybe a little gay.

[00:43:20] Jeremy: Yeah. And I mean, like Parker is the other one in, in horror of Dracula. Cause the horror of Dracula. They're telling him it doesn't have a cowboy in it, it's just Van Helsing doing his thing and pulling along, pulling around other people to get murdered in his stead. But yeah fucking Jonathan Harker is absolutely useless in that movie, despite the fact that he goes to Castle Dracula with the intention of killing Dracula.

[00:43:43] He's quite bad at it. Yeah. I mean

[00:43:45] Chris: most people are, you really wanna get down to it. Most people bad at killing Dracula.

[00:43:51] Ben: Yeah, I The point in 10 of these movies, I mean, supposed to be very hard to do if you're not a Belmont and pretty difficult, even if you are a Belmont.

[00:44:01] Emily: Yeah. That's why you have to go through like all the statues and the, the candles

[00:44:06] Ben: I guess if you're Blade, you didn't have too much trouble with Dominic Versace Dracula or Drake.

[00:44:12] Emily: But he was, he was barely-.

[00:44:14] Ben: Remember Blade? Remember when they called Dracula? Drake?

[00:44:18]

[00:44:18] Emily: Yes.

[00:44:19] Ben: Remember Blade three?

[00:44:25] Emily: No.

[00:44:25] Ben: A movie Not enjoyed by any of the people who made Blade three.

[00:44:29] Emily: That's really sad.

[00:44:31] Jeremy: It's no Blade, blade three is a very serious movie, which is why it's not called Blade three. It's called Blade Trinity.

[00:44:38] Emily: That's right.

[00:44:39] Ben: If you've never heard Patton Oswalt stand up routines about his time on Blade Trinity it is well worth a listen.

[00:44:45] Jeremy: Yeah. I would say as far as , the other kind of progressive values stuff we usually talk about on here, this movie doesn't have anything really to say about mental illness or disability. It has nothing to say about race whatsoever. I guess I have plenty to say about class cause we do have this really vanilla, shitty Hellfire club of, of you know, rich upper class white men who are just-.

[00:45:10] Emily: Double hockey stick fire.

[00:45:11] Ben: It definitely wants to. Be very explicit at how shitty and hypocritical.

[00:45:18] Emily: Yes.

[00:45:19] Ben: Like these upper class men and their values are. At the same time, you know, it's eight, what is this, 19th century England. They're all pro, they're all probably rich off some sort of fucked out colonialism or another.

[00:45:34] Emily: I mean, you look at their houses and it's, they're all full of like Balinese statues and Indian fucking elephant statues and shit.

[00:45:43] Ben: These people are colonialist as fuck. But just in that, it's not interrogated, it's just in that way where it's like the sun doesn't sit on the British empire! or,

[00:45:52] Emily: I mean, and that's the thing is that, you know, it's supposed to indicate that they're rich. At least this time in the time that the film was made.

[00:45:59] Ben: You can't have those sideburns and me not think about colonialism. I mean, I just think it's the tide burns of colonialism.

[00:46:06] Emily: But Devilman... But I mean, I guess Japan colonized some stuff, but

[00:46:10] Ben: Yeah, that's a, that's a whole other can of worms that Yeah. Should be open. But not tonight.

[00:46:16] Emily: Not tonight.

[00:46:16] Jeremy: Not by us.

[00:46:18] Ben: Not by us, and, but especially not by us.

[00:46:21] Emily: But there's a lot of exoticism going on in this movie at the presentation of like the brothel girls and how they're supposed to be like, you know, oh, snake dance.

[00:46:30] She's supposed to be belly dancing. And, there was someone in the credits credited as Chinese girl. I don't know if, if it was actually an Asian actress or if it was somebody's like stage name.

[00:46:44] Ben: Well, there is, there is an Asian actress in the brothel, so, okay. I guess at least she got credited.

[00:46:50] Emily: Good, good, good, good, good. But I mean, like, The whole brothel thing is full of exoticism.

[00:46:54] Ben: It's not great. Yeah. Oh yeah. Just the whole like with their shitty Hellfire club of like we're bored being rich and in charge of everything and being super controlling towards our families. Lower class, rebel of the world.

[00:47:10] Entertain your betters. Bring us such sounds and songs and the lights that we have never before seen. This world exists to entertain us. Yeah. But again, this movie is very much with the goal of being, of making you see these people and their attitudes and being like, these people suck and they have it coming.

[00:47:33] Especially like mega, especially Hargood. Who a thousand percent does that shovel to the face? .

[00:47:40] Emily: Yeah. I, he, he deserved to be exploded slowly. Like I wanted to see his, I wanted to see him drawn and quartered with that shovel.

[00:47:47] Ben: Yeah. I, I'm throwing Paxton and Secker under the bus with Hargood here, but we are not actually shown if they're good or bad fathers outside of their, horror clubs for men.

[00:47:57] Emily: Yeah. Paxton Secker seems pretty, like morally ambiguous. Paxton seems like he's just going along for the ride because the big boys told him to. I'm a little bit more sympathetic to Secker only because he seemed to enjoy the cat so much. And that's his only merit as far as I know. Like, cuz that was relatable to me.

[00:48:17] Like, if I had that Persian cat in my lap, I'd be like, hell yeah. I don't need no drugs. I don't need, I, I don't need like, pussy. I just need this pussy. And I just wanna like, you know, stroke it in a way that is not sexual.

[00:48:28] Ben: My favorite part of Secker is about two thirds of the way through the movie when they realized they forgot to write van Helsing into this film.

[00:48:36] So Secker just all of a sudden and with no, no prior explanation or set up, just knows everything about Vampires and Dracula. He wrote, he's be the, that book that he has, A book he tells He has book, yeah, he has a book that's called, it has a book. He's like, oh, by the way, I'm like, I'm here to give you the info dump that I apparently know now.

[00:48:56] Emily: Yeah,

[00:48:57] Jeremy: yeah.

[00:48:57] Ben: It's kind, this movie's dumb, but I love it. Like I, I enjoyed the absolute hell out of this movie.

[00:49:03] Emily: Absolument.

[00:49:04] Jeremy: It's got, as we were talking about, interesting. Like queer stuff in it. It's a good one. Yeah. Ambiguous.

[00:49:11] Emily: Yeah, there's, it is ambiguous. The, the queerness is ambiguous. Lucy also.

[00:49:14] Ben: I mean, Courtley is rocking a very blousey blouse.

[00:49:18] Emily: Yeah. And there's a little bit of-

[00:49:19] Ben: And looking great.

[00:49:21] Emily: Yeah. Like the threesome thing with Lucy thing. It's, it's a little too like forceful ultimately for it to feel anything, like any sort of suggestion of representation. Yeah. But, they do have some moments where they're, you know, it's not quite like Mina and Lucy in Bram Stoker's Dracula randomly making out in the labyrinth.

[00:49:40] Like, okay, guys. Like, that was very much like just. I'm really sorry about that gesture, but it was, that was them putting it into the film. It isn't. This isn't. Okay.

[00:49:51] Jeremy: Putting in there.

[00:49:53] Emily: I'm not, I'm, I'm not trying to mime fisting.

[00:49:56] Ben: That's the universal gesture for getting it in there. Mm-hmm. Yeah. For you listeners at home, whatever you imagine Emily doing, that's what she was doing.

[00:50:07] Emily: Yeah. It's, I listen to a lot of this.

[00:50:10] Jeremy: That, or pulling a rabbit out of a hat, Emily. I'm not sure which.

[00:50:12] Emily: Putting the rabbit back into the hat. That's what this is.

[00:50:16] Jeremy: All right. So I, I feel like I know the answer to this, but guys, do we recommend this movie? Do we think people should go check it out?

[00:50:21] Emily: 500% any of these movies? Yeah, I know they, they aren't all like good, but-.

[00:50:28] Ben: Chris, if you are, like us, love this movie, don't have too much experience with the other Hammer films, what would you recommend we like check out next for more of this like, great British horrory goodness?

[00:50:41] Chris: If you want like a legitimately like good version of the novel, Dracula Horror Dracula is quite good. And obviously Christopher Lee has a lot to do in that as Dracula and really like turns in one of his best performances. Honestly, any of the kind of later era Hammer ones I think have their merits. Dracula AD 1972 is a, if you liked the weirdness of this one and the kind of upbeatness of it-

[00:51:13] Ben: I did.

[00:51:14] I very much did.

[00:51:15] Chris: Cause the thing that I really like about this movie is, it's weird. It is a weird one. Uh, Then definitely Dracula AD, 1972. Where it is now in 1972, and Dracula has just been gone for a while.

[00:51:28] Jeremy: He seem to have gotten tired of doing like, period pieces. What if we just did it now?

[00:51:34] Chris: They get over it at one point.

[00:51:35] Emily: That was what was so, delightful about Blacula too, like the anachronistic and like having this dude in, in the seventies, you know, these hot clubs and stuff. Yeah.

[00:51:46] Chris: Blacula a movie that I would say is good actually that a lot of people underrate.

[00:51:50] Jeremy: It does include Alicia's pointing this out as we were watching the final scene as Christopher Lee starts chucking things across the room of people that that was very reminiscent of Blacula where he just picks up an oil barrel and chucks it off screen and then it hits a dude in the head and he falls over. Yeah. I was like, I love this. This is fantastic.

[00:52:08] Emily: Yeah! Throwing shit.

[00:52:09] Chris: Dracula doesn't try to use any of his Dracula powers. At the end of this movie, he's just doing stuff I could do. Picking it up and throwing it at people.

[00:52:18] Emily: Like getting overwhelmed by Christ. Yeah.

[00:52:20] Ben: Throwing stuff will always be great, but yeah, he really doesn't do much. He's just like, once he sees one cross, he kind of just ends up being like, sideshow Bob with the rakes.

[00:52:29] Chris: Pretty much.

[00:52:30] Emily: Yeah. Mm-hmm. . He's just like, god damn it. All these intrusive thoughts. This is actually a church, isn't it? Fuck.

[00:52:38] Jeremy: Shit. You killed me by me being in a church already. I didn't see that one coming?

[00:52:44] Ben: For all the silliness. I don't want totally discount it. What do you think? Like Chris, Emily, Jeremy, like, did we, do we think there are any real themes or deeper things this movie is trying to explore get across? Like, I don't wanna totally dismiss it for the silliness.

[00:53:01] Emily: I don't think it was trying to say anything about the homophobia, but I think it was like, I think there was something there, especially with Felix being there because the, the whole idea with Courtley being like this, this object of fastest young like spry gentleman that is uh, fascinating, these three older men who are bored outta their mind by a brothel.

[00:53:24] Like, I'm certain, I would say with confidence that someone involved in the process of making this film was like, yes, let that go. Let that happen. And, you know, and on all of them, beating him to death because they're afraid of how intense he is. There's something there.

[00:53:43] I don't know if that's the point, but I think that that's something that this movie does touch on, even if accidentally more successfully that some movies try to, to touch on on purpose. So, you know. The survival of Alice I think is pretty clearly like we're supposed to be sympathetic with Alice, and be sympathetic with her engaging in her own sexuality.

[00:54:06] And it's not about punishing her for being a whore because her dad is punished for calling her a whore. So we don't have the Madonna/Whore situation quite as bad as we might have in other films.

[00:54:18] Jeremy: So you're saying this is a feminist take on Dracula then.

[00:54:22] Emily: Slightly . Very, very slightly, slightly more than it is like LGBTQIA representation or any such commentary thereof.

[00:54:31] Jeremy: Yeah. It also, it gives the feeling of like with the, I don't know, sexual liberation thing, sort of being side by side with the Dracula stuff. I mean, Alice sort of being the only active protagonist for a good part of this movie, I feel like they're like on the edge of something, but they don't quite get there as far as anything actually feminist.

[00:54:57] Yeah, but I, I think she's easily the most compelling character in the movie other than, you know, Dracula when he's there.

[00:55:03] Emily: Yeah. But that's just, I do the merit of being Christopher lee.

[00:55:06] Ben: I do enjoy the one scene where they're riding horses and bragging about getting engaged and they're just kind of like one scene living in this Oscar Wilde high class like comedy.

[00:55:16] Emily: Oh, yeah. When they're talking about their new, like how one of them's gonna wear pink and the other one's gonna wear yellow.

[00:55:22] Ben: Yeah. Oh yeah. Like it's, it felt very like the five minutes of the Importance of Being Earnest. Yeah. Ah, yeah. Oscar Wild reference. Same page, man. Fuck. Yeah. Oh, that puts a smile on my face.

[00:55:36] Jeremy: Well, speaking of-

[00:55:37] Ben: I forgot what I was gonna say. That just made me so happy. We referenced the same book.

[00:55:42] Jeremy: Well, speaking of being on the same page Ben, what did you have to recommend?

[00:55:46] Ben: Oh, shit. I definitely recommend the Lord of the Rings uh, bonus feature where Christopher Lee explains what it sounds like when you stab a man in the back.

[00:55:55] Okay. Hell yeah. I, I, I forgot about the recommendations and I just kinda panicked and my very first thing I thought of when I thought of Christopher Lee.

[00:56:03] Jeremy: That makes sense, makes sense.

[00:56:05] Ben: Come back around for me. I'll, I'll get, I'll have a real one.

[00:56:08] Jeremy: Uh, Emily, what, what was your recommendation this week?

[00:56:11] Emily: I would definitely watch the rest of the Hammer films and then watch the movie The Fearless Vampire Killers, which is a parody of the Hammer films and a lot more gay, like, explicitly gay.

[00:56:25] And the, the homosexuality is kind of played for laughs but it is very, very leaned into. Also the movie starts Sharon Tate, which is a bit of a trip . So, you know, a lot of stuff going on there. But it. It's kind of funny. It's, I think it's more funny than Dracula dead and loving it.

[00:56:42] So there's that. But it is, again, it's from like the seventies, so watch out for that. Not aging terribly well.

[00:56:49] Jeremy: Yeah, I, I was gonna recommend as, as Chris did you know, if, if you like this one, the horror of Dracula is more or less like their adaptation of actual Bram Stoker Dracula. A little bit less, especially toward the end.

[00:57:02] But that one is also pretty good. I watched that one as well. I would also recommend while we're talking about, you know, Bram Stoker and Oscar Wilde for that matter people check out Queer for Fear uh, which is a mini-series that's on shutter now, which is all about sort of the queer influence on horror and, and vice versa.

[00:57:21] You know, it starts basically with, you know, Mary Shelly. And, goes up through talking about Oscar Wilde and, the portrait of Dorian Gray and Bram Stoker and his crush, Walt Whitman. And him sort of having to very much hide in the closet after being kind of close to coming out in his letters to Walt Whitman.

[00:57:40] And yeah, all the, the various things that sort of spiral off of queer literature and, and horror out of that. So like, it's, it's a mini series. It's like, I think five or six one hour episodes, but definitely worth checking out.

[00:57:53] Emily: That sounds really cool.

[00:57:54] Jeremy: Yeah, I've been watching that and their 101 scariest moments in horror movies, which is just a, a good list of recommendations, horror movies to check out.

[00:58:04] Emily: Nice clip show.

[00:58:05] Jeremy: Yeah. Ben, did you come up with something that's not bonus features?

[00:58:09] Ben: I did. I came up with one. A movie that I think at some point we'll be wanting to cover on this podcast. But if you want more cheesy, fun, over the top quasi camp horror stuff I'm gonna go with Hansel and Gretel Witch Hunters.

[00:58:24] Jeremy: All right. Yeah, that's a fun one.

[00:58:26] Ben: Jeremy Renner is no Christopher Lee, but it's still a real fun movie.

[00:58:33] Chris: I know there's ever been a more true statement than Jeremy Renner is. No, Christopher Lee.

[00:58:37] Jeremy: Getting those two mixed up is really a-.

[00:58:39] Ben: Right. You are.

[00:58:41] Jeremy: Although, I mean, Christopher Lee is Hawkeye would probably be great.

[00:58:44] I don't know.

[00:58:45] Ben: Oh man. Chris and I, I would definitely sign up for the Christopher Lee app. Yeah, Christopher Lee could be a hawkey, but Jeremy Renner could never be Count Dooku.

[00:58:56] Jeremy: Or Dracula for that matter.

[00:58:57] Emily: Or Dracula. Yeah, I'm starting like my, my brain started really like going into high gear. Like you could, you, you could feel the heat off of my head when I started thinking, really thinking about that.

[00:59:08] Ben: I, I feel like-.

[00:59:10] Emily: An old robot saying does not compute

[00:59:12] Ben: Christopher Lee is that meme. Like if I had a nickel for every time I played a character whose name started with Count and the letter D, I'd have two nickels which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.

[00:59:25] Jeremy: Yeah. Boy, the idea of Jeremy Renner is Dracula is really haunting me.

[00:59:31] Ben: Who would win in a fight? Count Dracula or Count Dooku. Go Dracula.

[00:59:37] Chris: I mean, I mean, count Dooku does have a laser sword.

[00:59:41] Ben: He has the laser and he can go out in the sun.

[00:59:43] Emily: Dracula can make a laser sword.

[00:59:46] Jeremy: Laser sword is not on Dracula's list of weaknesses, honestly, you know, computation. Sure.

[00:59:52] Emily: Although it's made of light, it depends on what kind of light. Cause if it's an incandescent light, it's fine.

[00:59:57] If it's fluorescent light, it's fine. But if it

[00:59:59] Ben: is, I think it depends if vampires can be touched by the force. I, the vampires are like the, I mean, I, I, I, I think Dooku might be in trouble.

[01:00:10] Jeremy: All right. This, this is a deep, deep hole. We're headed down.

[01:00:13] Emily: Yeah, we are.

[01:00:14] Jeremy: Chris,

[01:00:14] Ben: I apologize for that.

[01:00:15] Jeremy: Can you let people know, you let people know where they can uh, find you online and find out more about what you do.

[01:00:20] Chris: Sure. You can always go to the-isb.com that is my website and has links to all the things that I do, the various podcasts that I do that you were nice enough to mention at the top of the show and things that I have written that you can read. Either online or in various comic books.

[01:00:38] Emily: Nice. Awesome.

[01:00:39] Jeremy: Yeah. And as for the rest of us, you can find Emily at Mega Moth on Twitter and Mega Moth on Instagram and at megamoth.net. Ben is on Twitter at Ben the Kahn and on their website@benconcomics.com. And you can find me on Instagram and Twitter as long as it continues to exist at j rome five eight and on my website jeremywhitley.com.

[01:00:59] And of course, the podcast is on Patreon at progressively horrified our website@progressivelyhorrified.transistor.fm and on Twitter at prog horror pod. But we'd love to hear from you, your thoughts on all the various Hammer Draculas are all the many Draculas or just your mournful cries at thinking of Jeremy Renner as Dracula.

[01:01:16] Speaking of loving to hear from you, we would appreciate, you know, rate and Review podcast wherever you listen to it. Five Stars helps us uh, find new listeners. Thank you so much for joining us, and thank you again to Chris for joining us. This has been a ball.

[01:01:29] Emily: And thank you for bringing this to us.

[01:01:31] Chris: I am so glad that all of you enjoyed it. That makes me very happy.

[01:01:35] Ben: Oh, very much so. We enjoyed it. Yes. This, this was a really fun time. Great.

[01:01:41] Jeremy: Yeah, it was a good one. Thanks again to all of you for listening, and until next time, stay horrified.

[01:01:47] Al: Progressively horrified as created by Jeremy Whitley and produced by Alicia Whitley. This episode featured Jeremy Ben, Emily, and special guests. Chris Sims. All opinions expressed by the commentators are solely their own and do not represent the intent or the opinion of the filmmakers, nor do they represent the employers, institutions, or publishers of the commentators.

[01:02:07] Our theme music is epic darkness by Mario colo six. Six and was provided royalty free from Pixabay. If you liked this episode, you can support us on Patreon. You can also get in touch with us on Twitter @ProgHorrorPod, or by email progressivelyhorrified@gmail.com. Thanks for listening. Bye.